The Amazing World Of Gumball – “The Meddler” Recap

Gumball is distraught over the fact that he doesn’t receive enough attention from his parents. In an effort to make amends, Nicole decides to start working the night shift so that she can spend part of her day with Gumball at school, although this arrangement soon causes him to believe that she is meddling in his affairs.

I’m pleased to say that this is the best episode of the show so far. It’s usually difficult to make me laugh, but “The Meddler” accomplished that and so much more. It was hilarious and it illustrates why Nicole is my favorite character on the show. She may not be the funniest character, but she is capable of contributing so much to the series and this episode used her perfectly. Things starts off with the right degree of drama. Gumball is feeling neglected by his parents and Nicole blames herself, but the reason behind this situation is that she works so hard. They really hammered home that point. After that, the episode becomes a barrel of laughs – with a few exceptions, depending on how amusing you find Gumball’s humiliation to be as his mother gets involved in his life at school.

That is really what this episode boils down to and I’m inclined to believe that some people will actually dislike it because of that. It’s a very embarrassing episode for him. I do agree that it would be nice if there were more episodes where things went well for Gumball, as you don’t need utter turmoil in order to have comedy. However, I consider humiliation far more tolerable than a character getting physically abused; I took umbrage with “The Gi” because of that. Instead this episode placed Gumball in one awkward position after another, and the writers kept making the awkwardness worse until it culminated in Gumball’s epic cheerleading tryout.

The only thing that marred this episode is that Gumball and Penny’s relationship seemed to revert back to the status quo. I’ve complained about this before, but after all of the events in “The Pressure”, “The Mystery”, “The Party”, “The Date” and several other episodes, it seems odd that Gumball and Penny still aren’t on the same page about their feelings for one another. Now, some parts of this episode did seem to imply that it was supposed to take place earlier in the season, as Penny wasn’t a cheerleader in this episode but was in another. However, the production codes provided by the network don’t validate that. Either way, season two really needs to establish some degree of continuity, if only so that these characters can remember what happens and actually grow. Despite that, I loved this episode and I give it my highest recommendation.